Jimmy McNulty had won bets, off and on, by picking out the biggest lunkhead in any drinking establishment, or, at first, out on the basketball court and arm-wrestling them. He was good at it because it wasn’t a matter of size, but more about leverage or centrifugal force or some other scientific principle that he couldn’t say when his mouth was slick with liquor.

He even liked the way her hand felt in his. “Just make me look good and I’ll take it easy on you.” Faith’s eyes glinted. “You just keep telling yourself that!”

She was so fast that the only reason he noticed he was getting pinned was the commotion of the bar patrons. “I could take this easier on you,” she said, her breath against his ear. “I understand guys your age don’t like it when you finish up too fast.”

He had her off-balance, just for an instant, but it felt pretty sweet, even if the smell of her sweat and some old-fashioned perfume(White Shoulders?) was kind of distracting. “I wouldn’t know.”

A duel of innuendos at not-very-many paces. A well-rehearsed dance for both of them, I'd imagine.

But the element of surprise is going to be a bear. (Let's hope not literally.)

Heh, thought you'd like that. And it's fairly in character...they've both done their share of "get some. get gone," although the few times McNulty gets treated like that by the woman, he doesn't take to it.

Faith hesitated., possibly because some brunette across the bar wanted to get her attention.Jimmy wondered how she could be the one that had the Smalltimore moment, when she was from Boston or somewhere. But it shouldn’t have bothered him because that hesitation, combined with superior upper-body strength gave Jimmy an advantage. Which he was at least minimum-happy to exploit, although he couldn’t decide which part was sadder: how much the bad-ass murder police needed a personal win(breaking up with Elena was hard on his sense of manliness) or how much he enjoyed touching this stranger when he couldn’t even blame being half in the bag for it.

Jesus, Jimmy, he scolded himself, why not just tell the whole bar how much you miss the boys? A few times, though, he’d done that very thing, but the bar had been less crowded and the other separated and divorced guys, as well as the one shellshocked widower who seemed too young to look as though he walked in the wrong room all day, every day, would probably just act as though they all shared the same awful dream. Whatever any of them said, it was hard to imagine bringing it up in front of someone else, even for mocking purposes. It was sort of the dirty, bourbon-soaked version of the way he felt coming out of church when he was twelve. Wasn’t like God was ever going to clap him on the shoulder and say “Let Me know if you need anything,” either, was he? But he still, sometimes felt cleansed by doing it, if only from a good vomit after a greasy breakfast. Jimmy smiled thinking of meeting old Father McCaffrey and hitting him with that personal gem. He wasn’t sure if that or Jimmy’s riff on the plural of pussy would finish the stodgy cleric first; he was definitely making his own fun, these days.

The pile of greenbacks McNulty collected, though gratifying, was a little lighter than his mental math. Faith’s eyes sparkled, and Jimmy thought it was more than maybe liking to be bested. “ Did you take my money?” Jimmy asked.

“What? Would you like to frisk me now?”It felt strange to be with a woman and know you were both thinking of you taking her standing up against the wall. Don’t get it wrong, he loved cutting through the bullshit, but it made him feel as though he skipped some very important steps. “You know I’m trying to get across the country for my destiny, right?”

I am really, really enjoying this. Who knew I would be into extended verbal (and not-so-verbal) sparring as ... mood setting.

I would have thought everyone did, dear. But I'm still happy to read this.

Some more: After a brief negotiation—Faith cared less about home-court advantage than any woman he had ever been with, except Ronnie Pearlman, who got to go to conferences and had family money, and therefore could prefer hotels—they agreed they’d go back to Casa McNulty. “We could go back to my motel…it’s a dump, but there’s an ice machine.”

“Ice is good, but I’m not sure we really need it for what’s gonna happen here. Right?”He thought of some things they could do that might be hard on his back and shoulders and wasn’t sure if he smiled or winced. Faith, being young, and superhuman besides, in ways that apparently didn’t just involve having tits that could have been made to jimmy’s specifications ,just looked at him with a blankness that might have been insulting in a real date. He supposed he could shrug it off here, though, from her. In that way, they were on the same page at least when she didn’t have one foot out the door for her Hollywood dream.

“Yeah, okay…we’ll take that one step at a time.”

“So,” Jimmy said, trying to be casual and failing. “What’s in Hollyweird? Modeling or something?” “Nope. A little bit north…some kind of demon-pa-looza that I’m the only one that can hang in for. Wanna come?”

Jimmy bit her neck and Faith squealed. He said “I think you know the answer to that.” “I staked the last guy who bit me there, but I literally meant “Would you like to visit the Golden State?” Don’t really think they’re expecting a plus-one, but fuck it…if I’m the one girl in all the world, they can’t start the party without me. “

Women that came back to Jimmy’s place were often surprised, although they sometimes tried to play it off, at how clean it could be. A lot of them were looking for a chance to meet some other needs by caring for him and it’s true, there were times he let it get like they pictured, pizza boxes and takeout cartons everywhere as he ate over the sink. The more anyone expected it though, the less-satisfying it was to live in squalor, as his mother might have said. Only he would clean up as some kind of bizarre flip-off, but there it was. He was determined, in a way that reminded him of his mother’s crooked eyeliner after she’d had a few: an attempt, no matter how sad, to place his best foot forward in front of people. Even if it still meant forgotten kids’ junk under his bed. Faith’s mouth tasted like Jack and Coke, and something less definable that he wondered how he got through the rest of his life without tasting.

He thought it would be funny if they carried on enough in public that a uniform asked them to move it along, but he didn’t think his not-a-teenager body could be up to the flexibility involved. Lately, he solved the problem by taking extra shifts so he wouldn’t be home. Probably Faith’s room at the Travelodge was only slightly more personal; at least she would probably not have found a plastic lightsaber in her bed.

Post Deleted!

Made some revisions. OK, so, if he told the story to the guys in the squad, he might have made himself more of a colossus, athletically pounding her on that beat-up kitchen table, filling her up until she begged for more, clawing his back with those nails that he felt kind of…precious for wondering if they were real or not, given that she hauled around wooden weapons and actually fought the things that went bump in the night.(or, she totally got Bunk to buy into her craziness. Not the usual scenario, but anyone could have his head turned.)

With the right inducement—he’d been married too long if he sat around with a young woman who just *walked around naked* without worrying too much about what light or shadow might be showing him, and then, wondering out of some combination of living with a woman, whatever bond there was between him and Ronnie, and some twisted variant of professional detective curiosity, whether there’s a join for her fingernails. He…didn’t notice, but he had a few other things taking the blood from his brain.

At first, it was good once they got all of…most of the toys, but especially Sean’s saber out of the bed---Faith made a suggestion, but there were enough reasons why he couldn’t face the boys right now without…defiling someone’s Jedi weapon. Even if her breath against his ear got him almost as hot as anything, especially knowing she could have just blurted out all the ways the Force could have been with him and wouldn’t care that he might be hiding from work trying to replace this exact saber online. At least that was easier than the goldfish that his ex insisted on because his lecture about death was deemed too specific. He threw the plastic weapon in the closet, where it made a mechanical sound and lit up for a moment. Despite not really knowing what makes the other tick, except in the sweatiest ways, they shared a chuckle for a moment. “That really is Sean’s toy,” he said, caught somewhere unexpected between wise-assed comment and explanation. “ Not really some , um, coming attractions. “ The suggestion excited him, but filled him with a real sense of pressure too. Between her young, lithe body and her buzzing…companion that she pulled out, still warm from her cleavage, Jimmy was so unsure he could keep up, that eventually he didn’t.

“Elena wanted one of those,” he said, just cause who knew what popped into his head when he was this far away from conscious thought, and, fuck it, she was going to wildfire country anyway; maybe she should learn about the ways men could destroy their own wood. But if it would have helped, he’d have bitten his own tongue in half. She might have missed it, though, he thought, puffing up again.(Not quite enough, but enough to keep the whole affair off his personal blooper reel. ) “They’re awfully expensive, though. You know, there are things they say you can’t put a price on, but…sometimes you have to.” He finished lamely, as she mounted him anyway.

In her place, he wouldn’t, but he wasn’t dumb and drunk enough to tell her everything. Still, nobody likes a cheapskate. “Yeah…well, she should have gotten the five-finger discount, then.” He loved the way her hair brushed his face.

“You stole a vibrator.”

“Four.” She said, beaming at her larceny. “I’m kind of…hard on them. I’d say I don’t know why, but we’re both too smart for that. It was no problem. I’m fast…till I’m not.”

“They didn’t catch you?” He would have felt lucky to read that *report* but instead she was here with him. For the first time in months, Jimmy felt that he was living right, whether there were enough batteries in his lightsaber. “Obviously not. Wicked stupid to tell that story otherwise.”

“Good point.”

I'll admit, "all of the toys" had me raising an eyebrow. And then a most excellent payoff with "You stole a vibrator."

A fine study in the art of Chekov's sex toy. (Or was that Ibsen?)

But I'll bet Jimmy knows something about what to do with his hands.